Numinosum
by Pace is the trick
Summary: Born into a world of privilege and pain, Roman Godfrey has spent the first eighteen years of his life unconcerned with the fate of others, his actions dictated by his varying moods. Then, without warning, he loses and gains everything in one fell swoop. This is his journey. Warning for SLASH.
1. Chapter 1

Numinosum: "… a dynamic agency or effect not caused by an arbitrary act of will…. The _numinosum_—whatever its cause may be—is an experience of the subject independent of his will…. The _numinosum_ is either a quality belonging to a visible object or the influence of an invisible presence that causes a peculiar alteration of consciousness…." ~ Carl Jung

**Prologue** –

He walks along the dark river, the smell of its polluted waters a striking contrast to its gentle lapping as it rises and recedes over the pebbled beach. No longer does he need a flashlight, his animal eyes keenly scan the black field for the ruins.

The Mill stands as it always did, a testament to the sheer determination of man to conquer his environment. Once the water was filled with barges bearing raw goods, the air black from the ceaseless labors of belching smokestacks. Once thousands from the town toiled here, their resentment of management and the order it represented periodically erupting in strikes. But never did these minor events halt production; immigrant labor was just around the corner in the next town, waiting to be trucked in. It was a lesson of brute strength, obstinate will – the backbone of the Godfrey character. There were those who were born to be leaders and those who stepped up to the challenge.

But the truth is he isn't sure which it had been for him.

The incessant drizzle has left wide puddles within the building, its roof too dilapidated to continue to earn that name. He neatly jumps them, hopping from dry spot to dry spot, though it hardly matters. He's soaked through to the skin from his walk. He moves deeper into the structure's bowels, past the crucible that lays as it always will - on its side, the Unknown Proletarians' Tomb - and finds what he was looking for. On the far wall of the control room is a grotesque display of wings – shadows of blood, an artist's vision of death; quite possibly rust, patterned by some mechanical explosion so long ago. He isn't certain. He looks up at the portrait, intentional or otherwise, and closes his eyes, breathing in the decay.

And then he turns and walks away.

Forever.


	2. A Journey

_"Who invented the human heart, I wonder? Tell me, and then show me the place where he was hanged."_  
― Lawrence Durrell,_ Justine_

The two new graves were covered in flowers. He felt it his duty to send more each day. He wasn't sure if it was guilt or keeping up appearances. He simply knew it needed to be done.

The house had become unbearable. Or perhaps it always had been and he'd simply never noticed. How many days had he spent awake but half asleep?

Increasingly he felt the need to get out. He visited Destiny every day for a month, lost and seeking _something_. She'd heard and seen nothing but welcomed him like a brother which led her to contemplate briefly how easily new members were brought into the family.

Peter had been in town for a mere eight months and suddenly she was in like flynn with the Godfreys.

To her credit she made no effort to cash in on the relationship. Roman brought her chocolate – admittedly expensive imported chocolate – and she agreed to help if she could. The Rumanceks did not believe in charity. He would have brought tequila but he remembered Peter telling him that didn't end well. He needed her senses clear. Just in case.

By the end of January, he had lost so much weight and sleep and she finally suggested he try a medium – perhaps a séance would help? There were no guarantees in this game but best to test every available venue. She sent him to a renowned woman in West Virginia who ran a cougar sanctuary and for the ludicrous price of $10,000 said she would help him find Shelley. He'd witnessed Peter chanting ancient incantations and whirling his good luck charm but was uncertain what to expect. He paid in cash and sat at the table, his hands in hers, waiting for the wind to blow out the candles or the walls to shake. But the session ended early with the Cat Woman spitting and hissing and writhing on the floor, thereby agitating her wards and scaring Roman nearly to death. He fled the scene, repeating the adage about a fool and his money. He would have dismissed the episode entirely were it not for her repeated cries of "Headache!" and her insistence that the word was "Still" not "Steel".

He believed in such things. He had been having headaches, a fact he attributed to his new state of awareness that left him overwhelmed by the magnitude of detail in the world around him. And Shelley's cryptic message might mean anything.

The next day he was back at Destiny's. She held his hand and asked after the child and he responded correctly but his eyes were vacant and she could see that he was hurting.

"She needs me!" he insisted.

"Are you sure she is the one who needs you?" There was no delicate way to phrase it.

"Give me a direction!" he begged but she shook her head.

The mirror was clouded and dark.

…

They met in the conference room to discuss the new chairman. Norman, to the extent that he still was Norman, had given Roman his share of the enterprise upon Roman's coming of age and came only out of courtesy.

The boy was, after all, his only living child.

They sat in awkward silence, having known each other for more than 18 years and knowing absolutely nothing about the other. Father and son, utterly at a loss. Each felt the portentous weight of responsibility and each was clueless how best to deal with it. Their only common thread had been Letha. And Olivia.

Both dead and gone.

"Coffee?" offered Roman, as befitted a gentleman. He knew all the right gestures.

Norman waved it away. Letha had had the genteel upbringing, prep and finishing schools. He prided himself on being a commoner. If a doctor of psychiatry can be called a commoner.

Roman poured his own cup. "I am leaving on a trip," he continued as if the discussion had been two-way.

Startled the psychiatrist raised his head, certain he hadn't heard correctly.

"I've decided to go and find her." He put two spoonfuls of sugar in his cup and stirred slowly so that all would dissolve and achieve maximum saturation. Years of practice had made the perfect sweetness.

"You can't," Norman looked at him as if he were mad. "The baby – "

"I'm leaving her with you," he continued smoothly. "You have more experience in that line of work than I have anyway." He laughed, still marveling at the idea that he had a child. Letha's child. "And with Project Ouroboros terminated, I am… worried." In truth, he didn't think Shelley was still alive. Whatever Pryce had done to keep her alive, it wasn't being done now.

"Do you really think that's a good idea?" The question was rhetorical.

"Yes," said Roman, softer still. And he stood to greet the scientists entering the room.

…..

At 3 a.m the phone rang. He'd been nursing a bottle of scotch and almost dropped the phone in his haste to answer.

Seventeen minutes later he pulled onto the street, halting in front of the shop and entering a matter of seconds later. Destiny, clad only in a cotton g-string in spite of the outdoor temperature greeted him breathlessly.

"I have it!" she announced and pulled him to the small kitchen table covered in cigarette burns.

….

"Why two directions?" he was perplexed. He didn't like these sorts of puzzles. He didn't like choosing with the odds so high.

Unhelpfully she shrugged. "It's what I have. Highway 81 runs both directions. Both ways are traveled."

"Can't you be more specific? I mean did she go one way and then head the other?"

"Hwy 81," she repeated. "It's the only thing I see. Both directions."

He sighed. It was better than nothing.

One hour later he set out on 81 traveling toward Syracuse. He'd been South once before, to see the Cat Lady. And that hadn't told him anything really. He couldn't imagine Shelley going there.

…

The only road trips he'd ever taken were with Letha and he felt suddenly and irrevocably depressed, as if the reality of all that had passed had descended like an onerous burden on his chest. He lit a cigarette and punched the radio dial but the song was "Howlin' For You" and that just made his mood blacker.

There's something wrong  
With this plot  
The actors here  
Have not got

A clue  
Baby I'm howlin' for you

He switched it off abruptly and contemplated pulling over for a bump when the even more depressing reality that he had no drugs on him sunk in. He'd been too busy the past month to bother with such things.

"Fucking gypsy whore!" he screamed at the eighteen-wheelers roaring past. He realized he hadn't thought about Peter since –

Since the day he went to the trailer and found it deserted.

This led to thoughts of his mother and daughter and Letha and overwhelmed by the torrent of memories he leaned his head against the steering wheel of his '71 Jaguar and cried and cried like a baby for his mother, the only caregiver he had ever known.

Some things in life were beyond unfair.

….

He stopped for gas and food and cigarettes and studied the papers on display in the glass cases. There had been no more death in Hemlock Grove since Peter's and Shelley's departure and the case was considered closed. The new headlines focused on a sex slave ring in Williamsport, two local men and their wives taken into custody for questioning. He willed himself to remember the headlines from last year but none came to mind. He wondered if any had actually contained the word "werewolf". He doubted it.

He would have doubted all of it, or at least written it off as an hallucinogenic experience if he hadn't witnessed it, watching Peter become his other self, if he hadn't had his own experience of becoming. He wondered fleetingly what Norman and Shelley might say, the latter herself such a creature of the night.

He pondered longer what Peter had known, if that had been the real reason he kept his distance. How long had they talked amongst themselves, the Rumanceks, recognizing him while he had not idea that he was anything other than a Godfrey. Had they shared a laugh? He closed his eyes and pushed the idea away.

They were not traditional enemies, the werewolf and the upyr. In fact many believed them to be related, progeny of a god-like ancestor. The form of the wolf was believed to have been conveniently used to travel unnoticed by man. Legend had it that the wolf improperly disposed of rose again. But these nuances were lost on him. The flesh savored by wolf and upyr alike coalesced to the pure form of blood for the vampire. In this he differed from Peter, his lust for the liquid substance of pure life.

Still he had felt the connection, a feeling of kinship and belonging. How to explain that? From the first time he had looked at Peter he'd recognized that they were kindred souls.

How had any of this come to pass?

He inquired at the register about cheap lodgings and was told the Motel 6 was just around the corner. He could have gone to La Quinta but he had a feeling they might look for him there. The last thing he needed was to have to answer for his foolishness.

….

That night he had his recurring dream, Shelley and Peter and Norman and he spent all his time running this way and that, none the wiser for his questions. The tunnels under the mill led him every time to a dead end.

He'd never even been in them.

What did they want from him? What was his quest?

"Stupid birds!" he screamed as they dove into the polluted river's depths. He turned and Peter's eyes grew wide with fear.

He woke in a cold sweat, momentarily at a loss for his whereabouts.

He hauled himself out of bed and threw his belongings back into the small case. Better to drive exhausted than to face everything he feared sleeping.

He had just pulled out onto the highway, lighting a cigarette and grumbling internally about the lack of consideration of truckers, when it struck him. He wondered later that he hadn't seen it at all, it had come out of nowhere, caught him in his blindspot.

He looked up too late to see the van careening into him. The Jag spun numerous times around the slick road and thudded to a halt against the side rail, its shape now a polygon as the impact made two sides of one.

He blinked owl-like twice, wondering mildly at the dark figure descending upon him, and then he was out cold.

….

Far away on Hwy 81 Peter jerked awake, his balls climbing up inside him. He panted trying to compose himself and his mother looked across, alarmed.

"What is it? What do you need?"

"Roman!" he said sharply before leaning forward to retch on the floor of the Ford Pontiac.

His mother's hand on the steering wheel swerved the car, narrowly missing the deer running alongside the road.


	3. A Journey contd

"You're lucky you walked away from that one!" the cop marveled, chowing down on his Snickers bar so that it took some effort on Roman's part to decipher what exactly he had said.

The tow truck was backing along the shoulder, inching menacingly towards them.

Roman closed his fist, running his fingertips over the new ridges of scars, the entry and exit points of the glass and steel shards that had been his '71 Jag. He healed faster, more so with every passing day, as he grew into his new self. He didn't really have to fear things like near-fatal car accidents.

Of course, if he'd been paying attention, he wouldn't have had to test his healing powers. And he'd still have the car. He winced as the tow truck's arm struck it and the gears grinded, lowering to latch onto his prized possession.

"Cool car!" Peter had said enviously and how much fun he had driving it. Roman remembered every detail of that road trip.

He remembered every detail of the accident, too, the way you remember traumas –in slow motion so that everything takes on a new emphasis. So that you see things you aren't meant to see.

The car had come up behind him. If he had been paying attention to it, he would have noticed at once that it was accelerating way too fast, coming up on his tail not to pass him but to hit him. But he hadn't and by the time he'd registered the problem and looked in the rear view mirror, it was too late. What he did see was what he was sure he wasn't supposed to see - the expression on the driver's face. So captivated was he by that face that when the man came alongside him and pushed him to the edge, he was still dwelling on it and failed to react appropriately to keep from colliding with the barrier.

All he had to do was brake. How many Bourne and Bond movies had he seen, for Christ's sake?

But it was what came next that threw him into a tailspin. He'd blacked out for a second, no more. When he woke he saw that the driver had looped back, stopping in the median to park in the thickness of the trees to jump out. He was carrying something and even from the distance between them Roman could smell the gasoline. The reality that he was about to be barbequed kicked him into action. He wrenched the wheel and windshield from him and leaped from the car, jumping the rail and sprinting down the hillside into the woods where he waited breathlessly, wondering what his assailant might do. He heard the footfalls over the roar of cross traffic and the ripping of metal as his car came to a full rest. Uncertain, he just peeked around the bushes and watched as the man came to the edge of the road and peered down into the darkness. He was tall but otherwise unremarkable. African-American, trim, athletic. It was his eyes that bothered Roman, that and the fact that he was carrying a gas can and had just run him off the road.

Roman could have sworn that the man, peering hundreds of yards down the cliff, and was staring straight at him.

….

He called Norman, feeling like an 18-year-old. He'd done this plenty of times with his mom but that was before he'd turned, before he was a father himself. He had hoped to present himself to the world in a new light, to pass himself off as a responsible adult. The phone call was humiliating.

"Jesus Christ, Roman! Did you fall asleep at the wheel?" Norman had had a girl, not a boy. He had never had any testosterone in his household except his own. His girls were sweet and malleable. He had never in his life been called out of bed for a near-fatal car accident, his brother's shenanigans aside.

But perhaps pregnancies were just as wearing on an old man.

"No," Roman pulled the seat belt over his shoulder and glanced once more at the wreckage under the platoon of flashing lights. "I ran off the road." He omitted the fact that he had been pushed off intentionally. Some things unnerved fathers in the early hours of morn; some things Norman just didn't need to know. Ever.

Norman was still sputtering expletives as he maneuvered the Volvo wagon back onto the turnpike to head back to Hemlock Grove. "Coffee?" was all he said and that more of a grunt than an invitation.

Roman fell asleep in the passenger seat and dreamed of absolutely nothing.

…

"I'm telling you someone tried to kill me." It did sound a little histrionic and he did appreciate Destiny's skepticism. He just didn't need it today.

"Did you get a look at the person?"

"Sort of. He was a ways from me. But male from the scent. And dark."

"Dark?"

"Black." He offered.

"Dark-skinned?" She wasn't sure if he was being metaphorical.

"For fuck's sake, isn't this your line of work? Can't you just look into the crystal ball and tell me who tried to kill me?"

"It doesn't work that way. If you'd brought me a piece of the wreckage or some of his hair – "

"How about this? This came out of the wreckage." He held out his scarred hand.

"Scars are good." She peered closely at them, her nose no more than a centimeter above. "We'll need help with this one. Someone who has access to –" and she rambled off an odd array of items that Peter would appreciate.

"Where do we get those?" he asked, exasperated by all the delays.

"Nicole."

….

Nicole was Peter's favorite first-cousin-once-removed, the one who still lived in the city they had just left, the only one who didn't feel staying put for more than two years was a terrible thing. Her profession was much like the other Rumancek women, "only more legit," Destiny grinned. "Nicole's the real shit. We're all pretty much amateurs by comparison." It occurred to Roman to wonder why Nicole's name had never been brought up before but etiquette required him to keep his mouth shut. The Rumanceks had their own arcane way of doing things that defied comprehension by outsiders.

Nicole lived on the tenth floor of an apartment complex with no elevator which meant they had to walk the steps. Roman thought this was a **bad omen** and he and Destiny spent several flights quibbling over the matter. Destiny equated climbing with elevation of the mind and Roman said bullshit, it just made his lungs and thighs hurt and Destiny almost brought up the refined sugars number but the look on his face said he wasn't having any of it.

"No wonder Peter moved!" was all he said.

Nicole's door had all the anticipated marks against evil but whatever else he expected, he could never have anticipated her. She was small and dark and looked nothing like what he thought a gypsy fortune-teller should look like. She was fit and had a monkey face that led him to wonder if other species were in the family lineage.

She looked like she could have been a contortionist in a Romanian circus troupe.

"How'd you guess?" she murmured and when Roman was taken aback she said, "Gymnast. But acrobat works as well," and continued to lead them into her abode as if he had spoken his thoughts aloud.

"And you are the upyr!" she exclaimed when they arrived in the back room, a veritable opium den with more knick-knacks than Peter's trailer. Roman was starting to see family traits. The only thing missing was Christmas lights. She obligingly turned them on for him.

"Yes," he said politely, for want of anything better to say.

"You've not spoken of this to Peter?" It was a statement even though the final words ended on the up note.

"No." There really wasn't anything else to say. "Fuckin' shit hasn't called" would hardly be appropriate with a favorite first cousin once removed.

"You have every reason to be angry," she said soothingly and Roman made a mental note not to think in complete sentences.

He tried to clear his head.

"Clearing your head is good," she continued. "It will help us see the one who pursues you."

He'd long gotten used to language like that – "the one who pursues you" or "to rise, a victim of your own hand" or "to be a stillpoint in a turning world, that is the greatest feat of the warrior." He often wondered if English really was their native tongue.

Nicole laughed, a rousing belly laugh, and began lighting candles. "We are the children of our Mother, Earth."

He was used to that too, the whole earth/candle thing.

"Do you wish to speak with Peter?"

The words caught him off guard and before he could compose himself and say it didn't really matter he had already blurted out, "Yes!"

"He would help you on your journey," was all she said before motioning him to the table. "Sit."

He did as he was told.

Destiny sat as well.

She exhaled and stretched, from the very tips of her fingers to – he suspected – her toes, rolling her shoulders and allowing her head to rotate circularly around her neck in a way he always felt was completely bogus, pretending to relax while preparing to invite the supernatural. He felt like he had an army of ants marching under his skin. He wished they would just go ahead and admit that they were as tense as he was. How could anyone getting ready to face a spirit be relaxed?

She pulled her head back to its normal position and opened her eyes to look straight into his. "You know your past?" she asked and again the question was rhetorical.

He said "yes" and then immediately "no" realizing she was referring to his upyr past and not his immediate family's history.

"As it is. The Dragon does not look to his past but remains in the present." She closed her eyes again and made several tired sounds and then she began to sway slightly in that way that made Roman hopeful.

She reached and took his hand. "You are powerful," she continued, "More powerful than you know.

"But your mother was a greater power still and it is she who has laid your path."

He'd killed his mother a few months earlier but figured Nicole already knew that.

"Your mother's plan threatens all. You alone possess the ability to stop her."

"She's dead," Roman interjected, silencing himself when he felt Destiny's hand squeezing his in a reprimand.

"There are those who seek to destroy you," Nicole continued. "And they will."

"What?" It wasn't at all what he wanted to hear.

"Shhhhhhhhht!" hissed Destiny.

"Only one way, to join with your sworn enemy." Her voice had that sing-song fading quality that meant the session was about to end.

He racked his brain trying to think who his sworn enemy might be. "Peter?" he ventured diffidently. He hadn't really thought of him as an enemy at all though their last words had been pretty harsh.

Destiny kicked him again.

But it was too late. Nicole was descending from the higher levels of consciousness and shook her head briskly.

"I need a drink!" she stated in typical Rumancek fashion.

…..

"Who's my sworn enemy?" Roman demanded as he and Destiny left the apartment and climbed down the ten flights of stairs with considerably more ease than they had climbed up.

"I dunno," she was genuinely perplexed. "You can't think of anybody who has it in for you?"

"Just about everybody has it in for me," he pointed out. "And that was why we came here in the first place," he reminded her. "To find out who was trying to kill me in the car."

"Well there you have it," she said with the logic and genuineness of a ten-year-old. "Whoever is trying to kill you is your sworn enemy."

Roman sighed and ducked into the car. He'd had enough of gypsy bullshit for the year.

….

"And how come she didn't tell me how to get in touch with Peter?" he demanded on the route home. He was still in a kerfuffle over the whole episode.

"You're assuming she's in touch with him."

"Well, yeah. Isn't she his favorite cousin?"

"That makes no difference. He will run as long as he must."

"Please stop speaking like that."

"Like what?"

"All the 'as long as he must' bullshit. Can't you people just speak normally?"

"What do you want me to say?" His bad mood was catching. "That you're fucked?"

"Yeah, tell me I'm fucked."

"K. You're fucked."

"Thanks a lot." He glared at her and shifted gears.

…..

He packed better this time, a hand gun and the family executioner's axe and even borrowed his mother's black Ford pick-up. Far more sensible in every respect. Shelley would need a place to sit when he found her.

"I really wish you would let the police handle this," Norman said tiredly. He'd dealt with more in the past year than the entire previous 48 years combined. And that was saying something.

"The police aren't doing anything. How hard can it be to find Shelley? And she wouldn't be safe if they did find her anyway. No, it has to be me."

Norman pulled together his best tolerant father expression. "Drive only during the day and call frequently." He said to his son.

"Will do." It was such a different experience, having a dad. He felt no need to give his customary Nazi salute.

…


	4. You Are Not on Solid Ground

Once when he and Nic were hunting, just shortly before the end, the older wolf turned and disappeared, swifter than Peter, leaving the cub to howl his loneliness to the impassive stars in the big sky.

That was the first time he had felt abandoned.

It felt that way now, leaving Hemlock Grove. That same emptiness that brought on the urge to cry out, release the suffering within, opening up inside of him and swallowing him whole. He thought of all the things he knew so well, his home, his town; those he cared about, left behind.

He was confused by his own emotions and for Peter to be confused was saying something. The boy who had never looked back, the wolf who eternally bounded over the hill in search of something new, should have no regrets, no feelings of remorse, of loss. But sitting in the car he thought only of ten brief months that had changed him irrevocably. He thought of Roman and all the deaths and the death he had witnessed.

A little girl.

A little girl who wanted to understand, to be a writer.

A sick little girl who failed to understand the magnitude of her actions.

A little girl who wanted to be understood.

And he had lured her to her death. That made him no better than a murder.

_Gadjo._

He would forever be an outsider. He would never have anyone other than Lynda.

In thinking things through he thought that in many ways they were alike, Christina and Roman, each trying on a new skin. The Wolf and the Dragon. He was certain there was a tale in there somewhere but he wouldn't be the one to write it. He felt angry that he had been at the center of it all. He blamed himself for weakness.

He blamed Roman.

He wondered what Roman's reaction would be when he learned the truth, if he would share the same feeling Peter had had that this was why they had been brought to this terrible place at this terrible time, their fate and heart lines dangerously crossing. That this was the convergence of all things good and evil.

He thought of Olivia's bastard child and his great-grandfather's great-grandfather, generations ago forming the bond that would unite kith and kin in a most unlikely scenario.

He wondered that things could be so out of kilter.

Or so well arranged.

Angels?

_No more death._

He wondered which path Roman had chosen and hoped against hope that he had chosen the right way, the other way.

He thought of the first time they'd met, how he looked at Peter's eyes and remembered the words of wisdom from Nicolae, "They are things that look like you and me but they are not. Clothes, smile, beating heart – these things are only masks hiding the creature beneath. But the eyes…"

The green Godfrey eyes. If eyes are a window to the soul then Roman Godfrey was in Hell, his Darkness shining for all to see.

Those eyes shining through the trees that first night.

He should never have spoken to him.

Peter was anything but sentimental. The boy who had been given the honor of beheading his grandfather to keep the dead from coming back. He'd never wanted to hang on to anything. He shed human ties as often as he shed his human skin.

And thus he was perplexed. Why was he spending so much time reflecting on Roman?

"Something must be happening," he confided to his mother. She was terribly worried about him. She nodded in that terribly-worried maternal way. "I don't know, maybe he did something stupid, like take off trying to find Shelley on his own instead of working through the Cat Lady."

She nodded, reaching out to grasp his hand.

"I mean, he _should_ get out. Get the fuck out of there. But I just don't think –" he couldn't bring himself to say that Shelley was gone.

He hoped Roman had continued the good fight.

His mother ran her fingers through his hair, one hand on the wheel, eyes only for him.

"Mom!" The horn of the car approaching them was jarring his already achy head.

"Sorry." She went back to driving. "You're my little honeybun, you know that?"

"Yeah," he said. And he wiped his eyes for the hundredth time that hour.

…

His mother drove through the night while he formulated a plan. They had family in Canada and Mexico. He could turn and cross either border and find them. But Lynda would have to stay behind. She would be fine, of course, she'd done nothing wrong, and she had plenty of people she could stay with. She was set money-wise. The Godfrey account had been a huge payoff. He was 18 now, time to leave the nest and build one of his own. This was the way of the world.

But he couldn't bring himself to leave her. She was like a child, dependent on him and the idea that he was hers, inextricably bound to her. To leave her would cause her tremendous grief. He was her everything, in the way that no person should ever be another person's all. Long ago she'd cut herself off from the rest of the world for him and he felt the tremendous weight of obligation to return the favor. He figured at the end he'd be Nicolae's age, a lone wolf, and she would still be with him.

He tried to imagine different scenarios where they settled in some small Texas town on the border where no one spoke English or watched the national news. The population would be Mexican.

Catholic.

Superstitious.

The problem was that small towns might be quaint for tourists but they were deathtraps for outsiders trying to fit in. Particularly Italian-Gypsy-Werewolf outsiders. Small towns were very unforgiving of people who did things differently. He had a strong feeling in his Swadisthana it might end badly for him.

They'd moved often enough, and just as often by force. Running was part of it. His grandfather had run for his very life in the old country and maybe that was the closest analogy, because Peter was now running for his life. Literally. If he was caught, he'd be killed.

Or caged. More than anything he feared being caged. He'd rather be dead.

Nicolae had told him of the caged camps in Eastern Europe. He'd only escaped because he was a wolf and could dig under the fences.

The cage they would put Peter in would be inescapable.

He tried not to think about that but it crept under his skin in a most uncomfortable way, made him want to run far and wide to evade whatever net they might cast.

It was just one of the many worries on his very narrow shoulders.

….

They were in upstate New York turning east to Maine when it hit him. He saw Shelley standing on the side of the road, and then it wasn't her at all or rather it was but a normal Shelley, in a normal body. In the second he turned away and then looked back again she'd disappeared, leaving him to wonder if exhaustion was taking its toll. But not thirty seconds later he saw Roman, rapidly descending a dark hill.

Peter jerked forward, his body rigid with sensation, and his mother was alarmed. They discussed what it meant and concluded that either Roman or Shelley was in trouble. Or both. Peter hated to think that his assumption that Roman had done something rash was right. But too well did he know the spinning coin. No telling what Roman had gotten himself into this time.

Peter had left his phone behind to prevent Chasseur and the others from finding him but he didn't think it was a good idea to contact Destiny anyway. Her phone was probably wiretapped as well. Which left only one option.

"We have to go back," he told his mother.

….

They parked in the woods outside of town. Peter had decided to turn, venture into town and see if he could find Roman. If he did, he would approach him to let him know that he was there if he needed him. If he didn't…

He didn't get that far in the plan.

It was risky. The town would continue to be on the lookout for wolves. Even if there had been no deaths since Christina's, they would still be rattled. The brutality of the murders had torn them apart. Nothing like that had happened since the deaths of workers at Godfrey Steel, an event that led to a total revamping of the town's economic make-up. Peter paused to wonder how it would feel to have the sun and stars revolve around you as they did the Godfreys. No wonder Roman was such a fucking mess.

"Almost time," he said to Lynda who was attempting to find a place to build a campfire. "Don't bother. We aren't staying."

"Says the one who insisted we come back," she said fondly ruffling his hair. She knew he'd be hungry when he turned back into her human son.

It wasn't something he did often, conjuring his other self. It was agonizing and terrifying to bring forth that primeval being, that predator of no restraint. He knew what all he was capable of and no matter how many precautions he took, there was never any guarantee…

His body jerked forward and he felt the one within unleashed. He looked helplessly at his mother, mouth working in mute horror as little by little his senses were consumed. He cried out just once when his backbone cracked and then snapped in half, the beast's longer suppler spine emerging. One more thrust and the snout pushed through his mouth, frail human teeth dropping as savage canine fangs took up their position.

In fewer than five minutes it was over and he was greedily devouring the remains that would become him a dawn. He looked at his mother, the perplexed look of a dog unable to communicate its needs and turned into the night.

….

_padpadpadpadpadpadpadpadpadpad_

The sound of paws covering ground. He understood they were his. But his mind was elsewhere.

_padpadpadpadpadpadpadpadpadpad_

Covering the ground at a lope and then a run.

_padpadpadpadpadpadpadpadpadpad_

Even a week old the scent was powerful. He'd recognize his mate anywhere. Thinking only now as a wolf he forged through the brush determined to catch up to the gasoline-soaked monster that had taken him.

The footprints in the mud were further and further apart as he ran.

….

It hadn't been a propitious start. A flat tire followed by mechanical difficulties and Roman was a bit more temperamental than usual. If he had had his car it would have gone better. That thought sobered him up, recalling the face of his nameless assassin. He'd be ready for him this time. He'd shoot first, no pussyfooting around. The guy might be the same one hunting Shelley, trying to stop him from his mission. The guy might be the same one hunting Peter –

He made it a point not to think about Peter. It hurt too much.

He didn't stray much from the main road. If Shelley was near, he would feel her. If nothing else the change had left him with a strong sense of those around him. From Shelley he would feel the charges in the electrical field, the changes in the soil level from too heavy feet.

The confusing interaction of indigenous soil with the chemical compound from the Tower.

No longer did he ponder that. The meeting of minds, his mother's and his, had conveyed it all to him. In his new state of heightened perception he deduced that the experiment that was his sister's resurrection had profound reaching implications for ordinary man. He might have wondered but he was too busy being a man of action.

As befitted a warrior.

His keen eyes scanned the passing grounds. He was grateful his mother wasn't alive to do more damage. Shelley had suffered enough.

If only she'd left her alone. If only none of this had ever come to pass.

…

The wolf howled, the pain of separation and a call to return all at once. And dropping its head it turned and went east at a faster pace.

It was in the road now, sniffing the tracks of the large truck that held the one he sought.

It growled deep in its chest. A warning.

…

"- the fuck?" Roman slammed too hard on the brakes and the truck skidded across the lanes and off the shoulder to settle in the bank. He breathed hard for a minute and then looked around again.

Yes, he wasn't imagining it, it was there.

A large black wolf hidden just in the treeline.

"A-rooooooooooooooooooo!"

Calling to him.

"Peter!" And in a single motion he jumped from behind the wheel toward the other.


	5. Chapter 5

_There are no divisions_  
_ Between things about to collide_  
_ Hitting the floor with our vision_  
_ A focus at some point awry_

~ Porcupine, Echo and the Bunnymen

**Lupus sapiens**

"There are things you should know," Roman began hesitantly and Peter really wished he hadn't.

Last night, the two had been overjoyed to see one another, had romped together - tongue on face, hands on neck, a raggle taggle of flesh and fur. They'd felt… happy. Light. Carefree. As if the only thing that mattered in the world was that moment, their reunion. Peter's joy of being Peter returned full-throttle and his troubles slipped away as easily as the scarf from Roman's shoulders. For the first time in his life, Roman had played. He'd only ever known fear and darkness and suddenly he was chasing the other with the boundless energy of youth, laughing to be tackled and nipped, shoving back in an affectionate way that wouldn't harm a ladybug.

It was without a shadow of a doubt the best time of their lives.

Now they sat in Olivia's truck on a country back road heading god-knew where and Peter was acutely conscious of the fact that Roman was an upir - a violent, dangerously unpredictable powerful upir. He knew their kind, both from his grandfather's tales and his own encounter so long ago in the snowy woods. Worse, he knew how mercurial his friend was and doubted he would have time to summon himself if it came down to that. He hoped Roman wouldn't start confiding in him, wanting to share his feelings, wanting as much from him as he had last night when Peter was a wolf with a wolf's instincts. Wolves and men are different. Men wanted things in a way that made Peter want to run in the opposite direction.

But he didn't want to make Roman angry. As a human being, he could never best Roman.

"You've decided to give up this austere existence and join me for the mother of all road trips." His attempt at levity only succeeded in making Roman look, if possible, even more uncomfortable. "Roman, I know. What you are. I always have." There. Better to have it out in the open like that.

"I have the baby," Roman blurted out, and it was more than a confession. Tension quivered in the space between them.

Peter was surprised but mulling over the information decided it made a strange sort of sense. Letha's parents hadn't wanted it in the first place and would only blame it for her death. It did follow that they would want to give it to a relative.

"It's – he's… mine," Roman added shakily.

"Yours?" His brain wasn't quite able to process that.

"I'm the father."

A surge of red flooded him and his body began to twitch the way it did when he turned. He was unable to respond. Several hostile minutes passed before he asked, "You knew all along?"

"No, I didn't know!" Roman protested and might have continued but Peter's rage finally found his tongue.

"So we were fucking the same girl all along," he laughed bitterly. "Is that why you set her up? Did you get her to come on to me so that you cover your own ass? What a fucking prick you are!"

"NO!" Roman was genuinely shocked by the accusation.

"Blame the little gypsy boy so that the Godfrey reputation is untarnished. How fucking trite!" he spat and he would have hit him if they hadn't been driving.

"I didn't know," Roman was actually pleading, a woman begging to be taken back. "My mother –"

"Oh I already figured she had a hand in all this!" He waved a hand airily. "The little prince has no teeth." He meant to cut him, to hurt him as badly as he was hurting.

Roman slammed on the brakes and reached over to slap him. Hard. The sound of it echoed silently and Peter's cheek stung from the unfamiliar sensation.

The move was so surprising neither of them could react.

And then Peter moved stiffly to get out of the car and began to walk away, every profane word he knew in the mother tongue ricocheting off the stillness of the morning air to his grandfather in Heaven.

"Fuck you! You come back here! You will not walk away from me!" Roman shouted, following him. He was not about to lose this battle.

Whatever fear he'd felt earlier was replaced by indignant astonishment, a mocking incredulousness. "Excuse me? 'Come back'? Roman, we are done. Finished. I don't want anything to do with you."

"You can't just walk away from this!" He rejected emphatically the notion that he could be losing everything he'd just gained in the past twelve hours.

"I know it's not something you are used to hearing but here it is one more time: No." And he turned his back on his friend.

"Peter!" He ran after him, grabbing his shoulder and trying hard to bring him around. "Peter, it's not what you think – "

Peter slammed all of his human weight into him and what might have been the end of him began. It would have taken so little. A hand raised to slash his throat. Two hands to turn his head all the way around. He had a brief vision of who would be there to behead him. He didn't want to come back as that.

But Roman just lay there and allowed himself to be bested.

Again the action was so uncharacteristic, Peter drew himself up, breathing heavily from the physical and emotional struggle.

Roman's nose was bleeding from the impact of Peter's fist but for once he didn't reach up to touch it, feel the warmth of himself on his fingers, lift them to his mouth to savor the sweet taste of iron. For once the lure of blood was not stronger than his other needs.

"I didn't know. She tricked me. I wasn't… I wasn't myself when I went to Letha. I didn't even remember it. Not until she told me. After everything. After you were gone." His voice trailed off. He wasn't looking at Peter.

Peter sat still straddling him but no longer tense. He rubbed his throbbing knuckles.

"You know I can make people do things, think things," back to pleading, and for the first time his eyes were transparent, "you've seen me do it. Well she can do more. Could do more. She was much more powerful than me. Nicole told me that – "

"Nicole?" It just kept getting weirder.

"and somehow she made me rape her and then she made Letha think it was an angel. Neither of us knew anything. I swear to you I never knew." The quiet desperation of needing - to be heard, believed. Accepted.

Peter's head ached worse than his hand. He wished he'd never met Roman Godfrey. Finally he sighed, utterly at a loss for what came next.

"We still need to get back to your mother," Roman said plaintively, but inwardly the pleasure of victory rushed him and he had to work to suppress his smile.

Peter nodded and stood.

The boys walked back to the truck, the vampire trailing the wolf.

….

"You went to see my cousin?" The irritation really stemmed from everything but it seemed the safest line of attack.

"Destiny took me." Roman, having gotten what he wanted, was more than happy to concede this one.

"Well she had no right. She basically just dragged her into this with that. I don't need to have my entire family at risk."

Roman nodded meekly.

"I mean how would you feel if it was your family?" Belligerently.

Roman said nothing. It was his family.

"I left so that they wouldn't get hurt by all this." Vitriol spewed forth, the most powerful of a pool of contradictory feelings.

Roman longed to ask why Peter had come back to him but wisely held his tongue.

And realizing he'd just set himself up, Peter quickly added, "I came back because I saw Shelley. I mean, I had a vision of Shelley. I thought you needed to know."

Roman was too excited to feel any hurt at the slight. "You did? You saw her too? I mean I do, too! She keeps coming to me. And Destiny saw her once. Here. That's why I'm here. What do you think it means? Did she say anything to you?"

"It's weird." The excitement was catching. "I saw her and then when I looked again she looked different. Normal." He paused. He really was a gentleman at heart and would rather have died than make fun of someone different. "I mean, she didn't look… she looked different."

"I know!" Gone was any hesitancy or feelings of guilt or remorse. He had a purpose, a clear cut mission that focused his many conflicting energies, the dragon's weapon no longer a raging firestorm but the steady stream of a blowtorch. "She's beautiful!" He was so very proud of her.

"Has she always – " treading murky waters. "I mean, was she always… like that?" Tact is not something that comes naturally to teenage boys.

"Oh you mean why she can't talk?"

_Well, yeah. And the fuckin' size of her and those boot boxes! and –_ Peter shut himself up. If he had a sister and someone made fun of her, he'd kill 'em. He was certain Roman was the same way. He'd seen those green snakeeyes watching him with Letha.

"Yeah she was always that way. I told you she died soon after she was born."

"How'd that work?" He did remember. Roman had told him that. He just hadn't made much of it at the time.

"I don't know. Something to do with the Institute. I just remember that Shelley was taken there and she didn't come home for a long time. And when she did my father was really angry." And here he stopped because he wasn't sure how he could explain to Peter that Norman was really his father. He made the executive decision to save that for another day.

"So she didn't really die."

"No she did. And somehow Pryce brought her back. And he kept her alive. That's why she has to keep the potting soil in her shoes."

"I thought you were joking about that."

"No, why would I joke about it?" Roman looked genuinely surprised.

Peter just exhaled heavily.

"But now Pryce is gone. And Shelley will need her treatments and she isn't getting them." His hands shook on the steering wheel and Peter could visibly see the depth of his worry.

"We'll find her. If we are both seeing her, well, that means she is out there." He tried to make himself believe it as well.

…

"If Pryce is gone who's running the Institute?"

"I am." And Roman suddenly felt sheepish and vulnerable, the way you feel when you tell someone something important about yourself and you really want them to be impressed.

"You?" That wasn't it.

"Well, yes." He failed to hide his disappointment. "I mean the scientists run the research aspect of it. I just run the business end like my mom did." It hurt that Peter had failed to notice that part of him, the Godfrey skill and determination that had built empires. He'd kept the coupling link, warped and rusted from years of use and disuse, from a train that used to run to the old steelworks. It had sat in Jacob Godfrey's office for decades before his mother presented it to him upon his father's death. "You are an emperor," his mother told him and all appearances to the contrary, when he was a child he used to secretly imagine himself behind his grandfather's desk, ruling the biomedical industry as his father intended. It was something he had never told anyone. Not even Letha. But somehow he believed that Peter should have known that fundamental fact. Somehow Peter should have paid attention to the little things, the way he laid in the ground and listened to the rhythms of the earth.

"Why isn't your mom doing it?"

Roman stared miserably at the road. He couldn't even swallow the feeling welling in the back of his throat.

Peter got it. He was kind enough not to ask how. Losing the only parent you had, even if she was fucking evil, was a lot. He remembered Nicolae telling him about the old woman Magdalena, with whom he traveled for years. How when they met the upir, Magdalena had turned on him and torn his throat. Nic never got over it. Not the upir; losing the only caregiver he'd ever known since his own mother and brothers had abandoned him. It had broken him, left the wolf alone to howl, eternally severed from its pack.

Hereached over and gripped Roman's shoulder in a gesture of solidarity. He really felt for him. He also really hoped Roman wouldn't cry. He didn't think he could take much more.

….

Lynda was delighted to see both boys and had prepared enough food simply by scavenging in the woods to feed an army. Mushrooms and wild onions and berries and a few eggs from a local – and unwitting - farmer and various roots and flowers that were surprisingly tasty (or maybe Roman was just really hungry) and no sooner had they finished cleaning their plates for a third time then both boys settled down to sleep.

Roman woke first, Peter's body still needing time to recover from the turn. Lynda was already busy preparing the next meal – fried potatoes and greens and fish and roast chicken from a nearby – and incognizant - farmer and baked apples stuffed with honeycomb and something that looked remarkably like bread (and turned out to be so but Roman never did figure out if it was stolen as well or miraculously baked in an open fire).

She came to him at once and embraced him and said low and firm, "I'm so sorry about your mother!" and hugged him in a way that might suggest she believed maternal soothing and food could erase the pain of loss but she was a very sensible woman who understood that pain was part of life and that each person dealt with it in their own way at their own time. She remembered Nicolae crying at the vision of Peter being forced to endure a long life of suffering and how she had comforted him because she understood that Peter would be fine. God doesn't want you to be happy. He wants you to be strong.

Still, there were dark currents in Roman that were best handled rather than left to their own devices. "Destiny told me." She added, releasing his body but simultaneously seizing his eyes. "You need to know about your past."

Roman nodded dumbly and followed her away from Peter to the fire.


End file.
